Wearing a bright orange and gray dry suit, Ashley Townes stepped into the murky water of Lake Washington under a yellow moon, at a time when most others are asleep. A recent Seattle Times story features Ashley’s work as a fish biologist and a member of a grassroots group of neighbors who have advocated and fundraised for years to restore Be’er Sheva Park, to restore the shoreline and salmon habitat.

Building community among the different student groups at SAFS and Marine Biology—undergraduates, graduates and postdocs—the SAFS Undergrad Community Building Event was held was held for the fourth year running. Taking place on 13 May, undergraduates were invited to walk around and speak to grads and postdocs about different topics including grad school, what life looks like after graduation, and finding your way in science.

What brought a group of high schoolers to SAFS to teach a lesson on Pacific salmon and chemicals? It all started with an interest in ecology in 9th grade biology class, and a quest to find a relevant, local topic that they could base a research project on. Since then, Iris Zhang, Ivy Wei and Sylvia Mei from Redmond High School worked with Amirah Casey to research the topic, and developed a SEAS lesson centered on the effects of 6PPD-quinone on salmon.

During low tide at Padilla Bay on a bright day in early May, you could find a class of UW undergraduates exploring the largest contiguous seagrass ecosystem in the lower 48. Why? To collect data to assess the habitat value of seagrass.

Congratulations to the four recipients of the SAFS Faculty Merit Award, awarded to outstanding scholars and members of the SAFS community: Emma Meyer (BS), Liz Allyn (MS), Amelia DuVall (PhD), and Kristin Privitera-Johnson (PhD).

Shellfish aquaculture is a vital industry in the US, but one which faces mounting challenges threatening both productivity and business viability. Research often fails to align with growers’ immediate needs, so to close this gap, a team led by Connor Lewis-Smith set out to document how industry participants perceive ocean acidification threats and evaluate emerging adaptation strategies that are actively being researched.

For many students about to embark on their undergraduate journey at university, they plan to study one thing but end up studying something completely different. This was the case for SAFS undergraduate, Ryan Luvera. Ryan is currently undertaking his capstone research project, focusing on improving salmon abundance estimation models using eDNA.

Zoe Rand is a recipient of this year’s College of the Environment Graduate Dean’s Medalist award, a PhD student in the Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management (QERM) Program and member of SAFS Professor Trevor Branch’s lab, using mathematical and statistical models to study the population dynamics of baleen whales.

In a time of increasing calls for Washington judges to adjudicate water conflicts that reflect the State’s growth and development, two members of the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences attended the Judicial Education Workshop on Water Resource Science, held on March 28, 2025, at Washington State University (WSU). Angela Dillon, a PhD student at SAFS, gave the judges an overview of the importance of water for the environment and fish, with an emphasis on salmon and the Electron Dam on the Puyallup River, while SAFS Professor, Mark Scheuerell, gave a tour of Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, held on March 29. 

While pursuing her PhD focused on quantitative blue whale population ecology, Kristina Randrup is also a competitive trail runner, emerging as one of the top trail runners in the nation. Check out a feature piece written about Kristina by the American Trail Running Association.